Preparing payroll in any small business can be a daunting task. Whether you have one employee or 20, the federal and state requirements are often the same. By using the payroll feature in QuickBooks 2007 you can create paychecks, pay tax liabilities, and generate dazzling payroll reports with little effort.

In this course, you'll learn the steps you need to follow to properly set up your payroll system in QuickBooks—from accessing information on the Internal Revenue Service Web site to creating a new employee, from tracking time and job cost data to generating required forms and reports. If you're already using the QuickBooks payroll feature, this course even includes troubleshooting tips and solutions for common problems and mistakes!

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

The payroll process is much more than just printing paychecks. In fact, before you even attempt to process payroll in QuickBooks, you must have a good understanding of tax withholding requirements and reporting deadlines, among other things. In this first lesson, you'll learn where to find the information you need to comply with both federal and state payroll requirements, how to apply for an employer identification number, and how to utilize government Web sites to get answers to any payroll questions. You’ll even learn how to properly classify workers as employees or independent contractors.

Friday - Lesson 02

One of the key advantages of processing payroll in QuickBooks is that the program automatically calculates and fills in federal and state tax withholdings on each paycheck. You'll need to subscribe to one of Intuit’s payroll services to ensure that you always have the most up-to-date tables and forms. In this lesson, we'll identify the differences between the payroll services provided by Intuit, and you'll prepare to choose the appropriate payroll service that fits your situation. Also, we'll visit Intuit's Web site, and you'll gain insight about the various support resources directly from Intuit and other professionals who use the product.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

In today's lesson, we'll go over a checklist of the information you'll need to gather and enter into your QuickBooks file before creating paychecks for your employees. Also, you'll learn how to utilize the Payroll Preferences feature in QuickBooks to customize the program to your business. Last, we'll go over why Payroll Items are so important to QuickBooks, and how you can use these items to track every paycheck addition or deduction.

Friday - Lesson 04

Making a simple mistake, like entering an incorrect allowance for an employee’s federal tax withholding, will result in an incorrect paycheck. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to avoid such mistakes by properly entering your employees' information from paperwork gathered in the previous three lessons. Also, I'll walk you through how to enter personal information, such as addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers, in a step-by-step process. Finally, you’ll learn how to create defined fields and enter tax withholding amounts and employee sick and vacation time.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

If you decide to start producing paychecks in QuickBooks mid-year, you'll need to enter some year-to-date information to let QuickBooks know what payroll transactions have transpired since the beginning of the year. In this lesson, you'll learn about entering year-to-date payroll information and utilizing the QuickBooks year-to-date wizard to summarize each employee's information. In addition, you’ll find out how to summarize and enter tax liabilities already paid earlier in the year, and how to generate certain payroll reports to check your data entry.

Friday - Lesson 06

If you have employees who are assigned to work on specific projects and you need to track how much time they spend on those projects, then QuickBooks has some options for you. In this lesson, you'll see how to enter and track employee time in QuickBooks. Then, you’ll learn how to enter employee time using either the Stopwatch, Timer program, or the Weekly/Single Activity Timesheets. Depending upon your situation, one of these methods will be most effective for entering and reporting employee time data. In addition, you'll learn how to assign employee time to the jobs you've created in QuickBooks in order to produce valuable job costing reports.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

Now that the payroll setup process is essentially complete, in this lesson, you'll learn how to create a new paycheck for an employee using a Payroll Schedule. In addition to this, I'll show you how to create paychecks using information entered on a time activity form, and how to review, correct, and, if necessary, void or delete a paycheck. And if you have to provide paper copies of a paycheck or paystub, I'll show you how to review them for accuracy and then how to print them.

Friday - Lesson 08

Every company that has employees is responsible for various payroll liabilities. Luckily, QuickBooks has a Scheduled Payments feature that allows you to create reminders of when to pay these various liabilities, and we'll explore it in this lesson. You'll also learn how to e-file liability checks and create printed liability checks that include assessed penalties. Since you don't always pay Payroll liabilities to governmental agencies, you'll also learn how to use the payroll feature to track and pay other payroll items, such as health insurance premiums and 401K contributions. By the end of this lesson, you'll understand the process required to adjust the balances due for each payroll tax item and record a refund of payroll taxes.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

No payroll process is complete until you've created paychecks and paid tax liabilities. You must prepare and file important quarterly and annual reports with the government. To get a handle on this crucial responsibility, today you'll learn QuickBooks' easy-to-follow steps for generating and revising Federal Forms 941 and 940. And to make sure your information is accurate, I'll explain how to review your entries and compare them to the payroll data included in your QuickBooks company file.

Friday - Lesson 10

In this lesson, we'll explore one of the more powerful features of the payroll process in QuickBooks: the reporting feature. After completing this lesson, you'll know how to access and generate several of the preformatted payroll reports in QuickBooks. To help you avoid costly errors, you'll learn how to utilize these reports to review payroll data, identify errors, and even forecast future payroll obligations.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Benjamin Franklin once said,"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Today that saying still holds true! So, to help you with this inevitable time of year, QuickBooks gives you the ability to generate Forms W-2 and W-3. The government requires employers to submit these summary reports to each employee and independent contractor. You'll also learn the best methods to review these forms and make any necessary adjustments. Before the final printing of these forms, you'll learn how to properly align them so that the payroll information is nicely contained in each box on the form.

Friday - Lesson 12

Since many QuickBooks users seem to make similar mistakes when processing payroll, we'll spend our last lesson focusing on helping you avoid and correct these mistakes. For instance, you’ll learn what to do if too many payroll accounts were created in the Chart of Accounts. Or, what steps you need to take if you failed to properly use the Scheduled Payments or Pay Liabilities windows. You’ll even learn the proper way to enter and track employee loans.

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This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Scott Paxton.

Scott Paxton is a Certified Public Accountant and his background includes experience as a public accountant, a manager in the banking industry, an entrepreneur, and a college business instructor. He is a Certified QuickBooks Professional Advisor, and he has authored a QuickBooks workbook that focuses on implementing and troubleshooting the program.

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Requirements:

Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, Internet access, e-mail, the Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Firefox Web browser, and Intuit’s QuickBooks Pro 2007 for Windows or QuickBooks Premier 2007 for Windows. Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins. The Simple-Start, and Online versions of QuickBooks are not supported in this course.

This course is not suitable for Macintosh users.

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